Friction(31)

A soft sigh falls from Lucy’s pink lips, and I realize she pities me. I hate pity. It’s what I faced when I first came to America to live with Uncle John after Mum died. “Was she … was she angry at you?”

“No, not at me. She was upset to discover her husband’s secret bastard in his will. She was angry that I was conceived while she was on bed rest with my half-brother. She was pissed that my father was too shitty to offer any help while he was alive—even as my mum...”

I can’t finish because thinking of my mother still clenches my chest, even after sixteen years. While my father was living it up with his other family, Mum and I spent the last year of her life in a dingy flat, barely able to get by as she wilted away from the cancer that ate away at her body. My fucker of a father could have left me his entire fortune and that still wouldn’t have made shit right.

Mum loved too hard, crashed from what he did to her even harder, and in the end, she suffered bitterly.

Lucy leans over and lays a soft hand over Mum’s name—Georgina—and the thirty-three short years she’d lived that’s tattooed on my forearm. Her touch is lightning. Potent. Blinding. My fingers clench beneath her fingertips, but I don’t pull away.

Neither does she, but she should.

I’ve never needed anything more than for her to let go because once she starts, I won’t be able to stop myself.

“I was pissed off too,” I say, staring down at her hand on my arm. I swallow. She does the same a moment later, when I move my thumb, skimming her smooth pinkie with my rough fingertip. She’s so soft. So right. It’s dangerous that she feels this good. “Believe it or not, I really do hate to see a woman cry. Especially over a cheating fuck whose lover didn't even know he was married when he knocked her up. In case you’ve not figured it out, love, I loathe cheaters."

Lucy nods in understanding. “Do you ever see your half-brother or your … father’s wife?”

“I have a half-brother and sister,” I correct. They’re both stuck-up, over-privileged, and they want nothing to do with me. “I’ve seen them twice in the last seven years. Both times were awkward.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I have never liked attachments.” I wander my thumb over her knuckles. Her breath disappears, but she still doesn’t ask me to quit. I stroke her skin, refusing to hurry. I want a reaction from her. Want her to tell me to stop and that she doesn’t want this because it would be easier. Better for the both of us. “Christ, you’re fucking soft. It’s easy to forget that…”

“Forget what?”

To forget that I shouldn’t want to be inside of you. Drawing away from her, I exhale. She shivers and moves closer to me—like a moth to a flame. “That I won’t pursue this shit with you. I can’t, though I fucking want to. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to…” Her glossy lips part in surprise. I groan and drag my hand over my face before resting my fingers on my chin. It shouldn’t be so hard to tell myself no. “I like having you around, Williams,” I finish.

Clutching her hands to her chest, over those buttons I’m desperate to pop, she looks away to the blinking green light on the side of her laptop. “Are you still pissed off?” she asks, changing the subject. It’s a safe move for us both. “At your father, I mean.”

She glances at me again. "I'm all right, love," I promise, giving her a faint smile. "I don't hold grudges, remember?"

"That's what you told me, but I—"

Her phone buzzes a few inches from my hand on her desk. She bends over to check it and scowls. Letting out a strangled sound, she angrily swipes the text from the screen before meeting my questioning stare.

“Is everything okay, Lucy?”

"My ex,” she explains, her cheeks turning pink. I love it when she does that, but I fucking hate he’s the one making her do it. She can run off at the mouth all day, and I still can’t imagine what would make a man fuck around on someone like her. “He's still trying to talk me into coming back to San Francisco."

"To what? Get back together with him?” The idea of her going back to Tom Duncan gets to me more than Andrew asking about her. “Please tell me you're not falling for that shit, Williams."

She squeezes the bridge of her small nose. "Of course I won’t. I mean, that's what he's saying he wants but he really just wants me to run his marketing team for pennies while he continues ... screwing someone else." Closing her eyes, she tilts her face up to the ceiling, blinking rapidly. I hope she doesn’t cry. Fuck, I hope she doesn’t cry because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from pulling her to me and kissing her until she can’t think about that prick. "Don't worry, though, I'm not going to run out on you."

I make a mistake: I cup her cheek. She swallows back a gasp, her lips trembling as I bring her focus back to my narrowed eyes. I’m an idiot for doing this. My brain yells for me to pull away from her because being skin-to-skin with Lucy-Know-It-All-Williams is bound to fuck me over. Touching her means I’ll end the night pumping my hand over my cock since nobody but her will do. Still, my fingers remain on her face, unmoving.

Unwilling to move.

“Jace,” she whispers. “Don’t worry about me leaving.”